LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf _f::::£.^- 

UNITED STATES OF AMEEICA. 




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I 




Songs from the 
Granite Hills. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/songsfromgranite01coch 



SONGS 

From the Granite Hills of 

New Hampshire 



By 

/ 
CLARK B. COCHRANE 

WITH A FRONTISPIECE 




BOSTON 
CUPPLES AND PATTERSON 

BOYLSTON AND CHURCH STREETS 






Copyright, 1894, 
By J. G. CuppLEs AND Company. 



All rights reserved. 



TO THE 

REV. W. R. COCHRANE, D. D., 

A FRIEND OF HUMANITY, THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED 
BY HIS BROTHER AND FRIEND, 
THE AUTHOR. ' 



PREFACE. 



To the many books of recent verse I venture to 
add still another. While I make no claim to su- 
perior excellence, I trust my friends will not con- 
sider these brief efforts as absolutely indifferent. 
Years of business and constant labor left me little 
time or inclination to " dally with the Muses," 
which under other circumstances I might have 
done ; and they forsook me, or I them, years ago. 
However, during the last year or two of illness and 
enforced idleness, I have recalled the crude efforts 
of callow youth, and, recasting them to such ex- 
tent as conditions allow, I give them for what 
they are worth to the sons and daughters of my 
beloved Granite State. 

C. B. C. 

Antrim, N. H., January, 1894. 



CONTENTS. 





Page. 


Preface 


vii 


Introductory. The Silent Builder. 


xi 


Love lives forever : A Medley. 




Prelude ...... 


I 


If? 


34 


- On a Picture set in Gold 


35 


The Day of long ago . 


40 


Freedom's Call. 1862 .... 


46 


R. B. C. 1878 


. 48 


The Rainbow 


50 


Annabel 


SI 


0, gently touch 


53 


Noon by Lake Sunapee 


54 


A Farewell to Joe English 


56 


The old red House on the Hill 


. 63 


A Tryst 


65 


New England 


66 


Our Angels ...... 


69 



CONTENTS. 



-Crosses ...... 


.7^ 


Retrospective ..... 


73 


" When will I come to thee ? " . 


75 


A Wish 


77 


Alone 


79 


Reverie 


8i 


Despondency 


82 


^The Light Men use .... 


83 


^Fredericksburg 


. 85 


-A Reverie 


87 


A Dream of Youth .... 


. 89 


-When Summer smiles 


91 


-The sweetest Word .... 


93 


I walk with thee .... 


94 


- A Plea for a Heart .... 


. 96 


Sonnets ...... 


98 


- On the Shore ..... 


. 116 


The fairest Star .... 


119 


- A Plea for Love. .... 


120 



THE SILENT BUILDER. 



A PURE heart is a continuous prayer, 
A noble life is a persuasive voice ; 
They round humanity to something fair, 
They make the soul forevermore rejoice. 
And lead up to the shining hills where stand 
Fair Precept and Example, hand in hand. 

As rivers run in darkness to the deep, 
Still singing of the fountain and the sod, 
So they plead on, even while our senses sleep, 
And murmur at the listening ear of God, 
Of Love and Charity and Hope sublime, 
The fairest flowers in the wreath of time ! 



Then let us build our temples while we may — 
Not like the castles, built in airy Spain, 
That fall before the floods and pass away — 
Not where dark seas upon the shore complain 
Of hopes to death deferred, of beauty fled, 
Of wasted lives and great ambitions dead — 

But on the rock of Honor, day by day : 

With good deeds build it to the vaulted skies. 

With pure thoughts garnish all its rooms of clay. 

So shall thy soul to higher levels rise. 

So shall thy temple stand, a fabric pure, 

The storm wrack and the floods it will endure. 



5ongs from the Granite 
Hills. 

LOVE LIVES FOREVER: A MEDLEY. 
I. 

PRELUDE. 

. Jove and Juno, Oberon, 

From the face of truth have fled ^ 
All the gods but Love are gone — 

Realmless, hopeless, listless, dead 1 
When Jehovah stretched His hand 

Over all the starry space. 
Only this fair god could stand 

In the splendor of His face ! 

Thor and Odin, Neptune, Pan — 

Not one could the test endure ; 
Love, the deathless, lives for man 

Only that his heart was pure ! 



SONGS FROM THE 

Customs may grow old and stale, 
Change in all the earth may be, 

Empires rise and kingdoms fail, 
Deserts smile with blade and tree - 

Seas and rivers may dry up, 

Cities stand where now are seas, 
Still this god will dine and sup 

In their cots and palaces ! 
He shall touch the heart of youth 

With the fire that burns on high. 
Kindle in each soul of truth 

Flames of joy that cannot die. 

And his careful feet shall go 

Where we laugh or weep or plod, 
Till the thoughts of men shall grow 

Something like a thought of God ; 
Till is set the last fair sun 

Mortal eyes shall look upon ; 
Till the moon and stars have run 

Their last courses, and are gone ; 



GRANITE HILLS. 

Till the heavens overhead 

Like a scroll are rolled away — 
Then shall Love indeed be dead, 

And his reign have had its day. 
No ! — Beyond the stars and sun, 

On a fair and peaceful shore, 
His immortal reign begun, 

Love will live forevermore ! 



SOiVGS FROM THE 



11. 



Since Love first dreamed of Immortality, 
This tale hath oft been told : too oft, alas ! 
To callous hearts and ears that listened not. 
In all the ages men have loved in vain ; 
Till time is ended human hearts will break, 
And love-lorn passion make a useless plaint. 
Sad as the voices of the homeless winds 
That moan about the Avindows and the eaves 
On stormy autumn nights, or sigh forlorn 
O'er stubble fields and through the leafless wood. 
For Summer dead and golden harvest days. 

I had a friend in the bright days of youth, 
When life was joy and all the earth was fair : 
Arthur his name — a friend w^th whom I built 
Youth's airy castles, happy not to know 
They stood upon the shifting sands of life, 
Or that rude winds would lay them at our feet. 



GRANITE HILLS. 

Companions, playmates, all in all to each, 

We grew like foster brothers side by side. 

Our thoughts, our joys, our loves and hates alike. 

I loved him as a brother or a friend 

In youth's hot blood can love, because I knew. 

By that fine instinct with which children choose, 

And women know their friends, and dogs their foes, 

He could no more play truant to my need 

Than God could be unjust, or falsehood true. 

Alas for me, who from the barren years 
Have beaten out this truth : that friendship firm, 
Square-fronted in the face of adverse winds, 
Sure in the gap of dire necessity. 
Is the most precious gem of all the earth. 
Out lustring the starry brow of night — 
So hard to find amid life's rubbish heap. 
That gray-haired men give up the weary quest 
And pass the glooms of death without its cheer ! 
Friendship that waits on fortune's gilded smile, 
Or follows thrift with ever itching palm, 
Is beggar-born, and false as tinsel gold. 



6 sojVGS from the 

O, rare true natures ! they could not be false ; 
False natures cannot, if they will, be true. 

We played together by the wide elm tree, 

Or chased along green fields and running streams 

Not shadows, but true joys. O then, we thought 

Our little circle was the happy world. 

The blithesome, happy world that knew not grief. 

The noisy squirrels and the birds unscared 

Were our companions in that blissful time. 

And our domain, by the same fee, was theirs, 

Enjoyed alike, for nature's grace is free. 

We read fine stories from the same worn book, 

Old tales of Wonderland forever new ; 

And ere Sleep touched our eyelids with its calm 

Repeated low the prayer of youth and age, 

" Thy name be hallowed and Thy kingdom come " 

That golden chain which binds the truant years 

And holds the centuries in touch with God. 

The holiest prayer that ever bore to Heaven 
The faith or longing of a human heart. 



GRANITE HILLS. 7 

And most acceptable to Him who made 

The tenderness of its divine appeal, 

When, by sad Galilee, He talked with men. 

And told them of Himself, and how this prayer, 

In all the ages to the end of time, 

Should voice their needs and reach the ear of God. 

And so it rises when the morning breaks 

In sunrise, leaping from the crystal hills, 

And when the shadows of the night draw near 

The Angelus is sounded, and we pray ! 

From brilliant lips that wear the bloom of youth, 

From lips that glow with manhood's lusty strength, 

From pale, thin lips that falter and grow dumb. 

From dying lips that speak no more to earth. 

It riseth like the smoke of sacrifice, 

Moving to pity the great heart of Christ ! 

So fared we on with youth's slow-pacing years. 
While childhood's supple limbs grew strong and lithe, 
And all our thoughts grew wider, as the rills 
Grow broader, deeper toward the larger stream. 
The woods were our first love ; and there we heard 



8 SOA'GS FROM THE 

The brook's low speech, the voices of the winds. 
We climbed the mountain at the day's decline, 
And from beneath the gnarled and dying oak, 
Where oft the Indian maiden plighted love 
With some tall son of nature, pure and free, 
We watched the sun, slow sinking in the west, 
As ships upon the ocean disappear, 
Gathering afar his robes of shadowy flame 
That trail forever round the belted earth, 
Fringing the garments of the night with gold. 
Anon the blind owl, from his hemlock tree. 
Disconsolate, began to hail his mate 
Far in the dark still wood ; and quickly mocked 
By his insulting echo — " Whoo, Whoo-o-o — " 
Gloomy and dismal, shouted louder still 
With weird, untuneful voice — " tuwhoo, tuwhoo ! " 
So on we fared to manhood's opening years. 
Where faith and hope stand, eager, hand in hand, 
Upon the threshold of a larger world. 

He loved a rustic maiden of the woods, 
A simple child of nature, tall and sweet, 



GRANITE HILLS. 

Who grew in beauty like a budding flower 

Kissed by the sun and fanned by summer winds — 

The fairest Mary of the long fair line, 

That through the ages bear this peerless name, 

This pearl of names which is itself a prayer. 

Ave Mary ! O, sweetest, dearest name 

That ever trembled on a human tongue ! 

Ave Mary ! with the infant Jesus 

Close folded to thy bosom and long kissed 

In Joseph's tent beneath Judaea's palms ! 

Ave Mary ! through ages dark and long, 

Watching and praying for the human soul 

Forlorn, unfortunate, despairing, lost 

In life's eternal wilderness ! Sublime I 

The good, the beautiful are called for thee, 

O Mother of Jehovah's Sinless Son ! 

At first she loved him with a bashful love, 
A little fitful, like an April rain, 
And modest as a daisy in the shade ; 
But as a tender plant, by slow degrees. 
Grows vigorous in the luscious airs of June, 



9 



lO SONGS FROM THE 

So grew her love, until a maiden kiss, 

That speaks a language that was never writ, 

Betrayed her heart. Then where his footstep strayed 

In twilight soft, she lingered ; and at times, 

A blushing Hebe, hung upon his neck 

And breathed, to hungry ears, the tender words 

Ivi Eden heard, by streams of pure delight. 

O, sweeter than the song the angels sung 

When first the Star of Bethlehem arose, 

A beacon on the darkness of the soul 

Shining forever ! O how sweet, how pure ! 

And still it was the story never old, 

The whispered tale of every age and clime, 

Told with the same quick heart throb and soft eye 

By windy pine, or palm tree of the South. 

And sometimes they were silent and made love 
Hotter than speech ; for heart aches oft have hung 
Upon the modest drooping of a lash ; 
And lovers have a language all their own 
Of covert glances stealing from the eye, 
With tender hearts for their interpreter ; 



GRANITE HILLS. \ \ 

And the soft touch of a white hand can make 

The heart strings vibrate hke a smitten harp, 

Breathing in tune to some delightful thought ! 

Thus he was happy, as the days sped on, 

And drunk with joy ! Joy filled his brimming cup, 

As rivers fill their channels to the brink 

When fed by generous rains. So he must needs 

To some dear friend reveal the ostrich head 

Which lay concealed by one lone, tremblmg leaf 

Of slightest circumspection. So one night. 

As we were strolling in familiar paths, 

He told a secret all beforehand knew. 

And ended thus — " You are my dearest friend, 

Therefore, congratulation, sympathy, 

I crave from you, for I have told you all 

The vital circumstance that makes or mars 

My happiness in this world, and the world 

That lies beyond our vision, into which 

We sometimes long, and always dread to go. 

O love is sweet ! My heart is overrun 

With sweetness, as a bird's with melody ; 

The greening fields seem fairer for this love. 

The streams more musical and Heaven more near: 



I 2 SONGS FROM THE 

And nature seems to have a thousand tongues, 

And every tongue is Usping to my soul. 

O love is sweet, how sweet, how^ sweet is love ! 

Now every red rose seems to blush like her. 

The white rose whispers of her purity. 

In each familiar tree there is a voice 

That sayeth ever, ' O how fair she is, 

How good, how true, how like a saint she is ! ' 

Her face is like a dream of Poesy ; 

Her soft eye blacker than a raven's wing 

Against a shore of Stygian darkness set. 

Herself the paragon of every grace ; 

And when she smiles on me, and calls my name, 

My feet are on the summit, whence I see 

The blissful Land of Promise far out-rolled ! 

You think I over-praise this simple maid, 

That love is playing fast and loose with sense ; 

But who can over-praise the perfect rose, 

Or, with the poverty of human speech, 

Show half the beauty of its slightest leaf? " 

" And love — I know not what it is," I said. 
Thinking to throw a quibble in his face 



GRANITE HILLS. 



13 



To cool his ardor : " your blood is all a-flame, — 

Some leman you have lipped whose witchcraft strange 

Or magic spell hath bound you with a curl. 

If I should prick your little finger tip 

It would bleed ichor. — Arthur, what is love ? " 

" O love is love, nor more nor less," said he, 

" A longing satisfied, a gift of God, 

That, like eternal life, we take on trust 

And pray for till we have it. Love, like life, 

Is pain and pleasure mixed, a mystery 

No human mind can analyze or solve, 

Though it were Bacon added unto Locke, 

Or, for a moment, hold its essence in 

The crude alembic of philosophy." 

" Your definition's good, " I said — " go on." 

" Last night we looked upon the lover's moon. 
Which sailed the heavens like a splendid ship 
With golden banners set. Fair as a dream. 
The blue sky hung above us, and the stars, 
In rank on rank assembled. At our feet 
The winding river rippled on, and made 



H 



SONGS FROM THE 



The same monotonous music, sweet and low, 

That soothed the children of primeval woods. 

And she, who sat beside me in the joy 

Of innocence, was only half of earth ; 

She seemed a being of another world, 

The fair impersonation of my dreams 

Of love on happier shores. And while we talked 

Of life and love and all they meant to us, 

I thought myself a King upon a throne 

Worth all the thrones in all the lists of time ! 

My ship was sailing upon golden seas ; 

Fair winds had kissed her to the harbor's mouth : 

I saw Leander, toiling to his death — 

The mailed Roman clasp his dusky Queen — 

And pitied them, their pleasure was so brief. 

With years of bliss before me looming fair 

I envied not Adonis that he won 

Celestial beauty to an earthly couch. 

Or him who folded Psyche to his heart. 

The peerless god with his immortal bride. 

The stars were throbbing in far spaces blue, 

A glittering host aloft the summer night ; 

And while we gazed in silent wonderment 



GRANITE HILLS. 



15 



They seemed to recognize the love of earth, 

And answer it with their immortal love, 

Until the music of the far-off spheres 

From Heaven descending, thrilled our human hearts. 

If some fair angel, dropping from the skies, 

Like Hebe fronted, voiced like Israfel — 

Celestial radiance lingering on her wings — 

Had spoken to me then of bliss beyond 

Life's flying shadows and illusive dreams 

I would have kissed my own, still answering 

Her soft, dark, deep love-gleaming eyes, that looked 

The soul's unutterable thought, and bid 

The angel of Eternal Years depart, 

And leave me with the angel of a day ! 

" The man who would not barter half a year 
Of drowsy months and uneventful days 
For the delirious rapture of an hour, 
In which the snail-like and incrusted soul 
Creeps half way out its temporary shell. 
Passes unheeded wealth of precious pearls, 
And reckons iron better than fine gold 
Because he gets more of it for his pains. 



1 6 SONGS FROM THE 

Ascetic as the Puritan of old, 



Whose sickly watchfires burned on Plymouth shore 

When chill December toned the northern blast, 

His blood was never at a passion heat ; 

The slow pulsations of his steady heart 

Ne'er threw the ruddy drops into his brain, 

In quick, hot floods ; but, timed to droning psalms, 

And cold as justice or a bloodless creed, 

It beats, like a brass pendulum, the hours. 

But blame him not. If each soul knows its sphere, 

Its fate predestined ere the mighty world 

Leaped whirling from the womb of chaos wide 

When time, in outer darkness, lay unborn, 

It travels, like a blinded ox, the way 

It cannot choose but travel to the end. 

He may be wise, if wisdom is of man ; 

He may be wise, if it indeed be true. 

This rugged creed for which the martyrs died 

In smoke and flame — and, when this life for him 

Is ended, and immortal life begun. 

Reap sheaves of bliss upon some other star, 

With no regrets for this." 



17 



GRANITE HILLS. 

Then what avails 
Industrious prayer or any noble life, 
If men are doomed beforehand, one to bliss, 
And one, an outcast, to destruction led 
Blind, heedless, dumb? 



God never loved a creed. 
One honest prayer, to Him who calmly knows 
That which He builded from Eternity, 
Outweighs them all, though steeped in martyrs' blood. 

O, he was happy, as one who forgets. 

In mad pursuit, the stern caprice of fate. 

Or how men strive for what they covet most, 

And find this mocker ever stand between 

The prize and the pursuer, till at last 

Endeavor ends with silence and the grave. 

So he was happy. But as time went on, 

I saw a shadow lengthen on his face 

And grow a cloud. He seemed like one condemned 

To wear a hateful burden, night and day, 

As convicts wear the chain that gnaws the flesh. 



1 8 SONGS FROM THE 

O'er all his aspect came a gloomy change, 
As though December's storms of frozen rain 
Should blight the pleasant fields of sunny June 
And lay their roses waste. He walked apart 
Like one in dream. He saw the one he loved 
Go up and down her ways with rippling laugh 
And snatches of sweet song, but heeded not ; 
Suns rose and set, and still he heeded not ; 
Morn came and went, and she relented not, 
Till pain grew so oppressive at his heart 
That it must speak or break ! So sadly then. 
He came to me in tears, with halting speech, 
And told me all — how fallen were his gods. 
How devils, — in humanity disguised. 
And wearing saintly faces like a mask, — 
Who peddle slander sweetened with advice 
And pious admonitions of old saws, 
With secret poison touched her artless mind 
And slew love with suspicion. How one said, 
' He was a smiling villain in a cloak,' 
And one, ' he was a rake unworthy her ' — 
How, pondering the morals which they drew, 
She had bethought her of his many faults. 



GRANITE HILLS. 



19 



The small delinquencies of youth let loose, 

And measured them by what the harpies said, 

Till in imagination they assumed 

The definite proportions of great crimes. 

How she grew angry with herself, and thought 

She had done wrong in love's unreasoning ; 

That he, who once seemed only good to her. 

Might be a false deceiver, after all, 

Whose glance was villany, whose kiss was shame — 

How, at a trysting place where he and she 

Had often talked of love and all it meant, 

In trance or revery, he sought to calm 

His brain bewildered, and subdue his grief. 

And Sleep, the charmer, touched, as sooth as Death, 

With opiate finger his unquiet lips. 

And he forgot he was a living soul, 

But seemed a dreamer in a land of dreams 

Where no wind stirred, nor any sound was made, 

But Silence, with hush finger on her lips. 

And light feet shod with wool, stole softly on — 

Counting the sleepers. And then one he knew, 

A daughter of the breezes and the sun. 

Stole to his side and passed into his dream. 



20 SOJVGS FROM THE 

Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes 

And trembled on their lashes : — stooping low, 

She held the lamp of Psyche to his face 

She once had kissed, and would have kissed again ; 

Her white hand trembled, but she dropped no oil, 

Ere Silence came and beckoned her away. 

And Nature woke him at her own sweet will. 

And all his vision fled into the dark. 

O, if there is a being doubly cursed, 

Offending Heaven and disowned of Hell, 

It is the wretch who peddles harmful lies 

And magnifies small faults to injury ! 

Sooner than take such by the hand, and say, 

* My friend, good morrow, and God bless your soul,' 

I would affiliate with petty thieves, 

Malicious murderers, — assassins hired 

To stab to death a good man in the dark, — 

And own the fiend who plies the midnight torch 

As very special brother to my soul ! 

Thou intermeddler ! would that I could write 

A paragraph upon thy hated face 

That should be read by all that looked on thee ! 

Thou vomit of Perdition ! Spawn of Hell ! 



GRANITE HILLS. 2 1 

Thou accident of Belial and a witch ! 

Thou art a being of no mortal birth, 

Else God, repenting what He once called good, 

Had linked our father Adam with the snake, 

And with a curse redoubled, bid him crawl 

Forever on his belly in the dust ! 

For the poor wretch who steals the widow's mite 

On some fair pretext of a pious soul. 

And feeds and fattens on the orphans' share, 

While weary, weeping, jeered at, unconsoled, 

They go a-begging in the streets for bread, 

We may have some poor pity — but for thee. 

The soul of honor cries — alas, in vain — 

* Thou leper, get thee gone ! ' 

O, she was changed : 
She had no smile for him, and all the world 
Grew blank as ocean waste. No star in heaven, 
No voice of bird or flower or stream or tree 
Could comfort him who once had loved them all. 
Hope paled and flickered as a light burns low, 
Then flashes up a moment ere it dies. 



22 SOA'GS FROM THE 

Even then, he could not see the sober truth, 
As others saw it in the noonday sun, 
But went about, and carried in his hand 
The confident devotion of a soul, 
And loved this hesitating angel still 
With all he was, and all he hoped to be 
In this world or the world which is to come, 
And met for truth as constant as a star — 
For neither falsehood nor a thought of guile 
Had lodgement in the chambers of his soul — 
A faith that faltered and, betimes, grew cold 
With blight of hesitation and a doubt. 
The love that hesitates cannot be true. 
Nor that the poets ever painted blind 
Because it saw no faults, but stood unswerved, 
Faithful amidst the shocks of war and death. 



God bless the woman who is constant, true, 
Steadfast, one-thoughted, unsuspicious, kind ; 
One who could see a little good in me, 
And hold fast by it to the bitter end ! 
One who would never take my frailties up 



23 



GRANITE HILLS. 

And hold them gingerly 'twixt dark and light, 

And say, * behold them ! ' with a scornful look. 

One — if an angel came to her and breathed 

The small insinuation of a hint. 

Or laid a mild suspicion at my door, 

With angered front, would smite him on the face 



He sought forgetfulness, but all in vain. 

One face was ever present in his sleep ; 

He dreamt that in a cot of smiling peace. 

With blest contentment as their lifelong guest, 

They dwelt together 'mid their native hills, 

And let the current of their live^ flow on 

To that mysterious and unknown abode 

Which waits us all ; — two fountains, but one stream. 

And then a spirit, rising from the shades 

Of Lucifer's dominions, bleak and drear. 

Spread over him its wings of spectral gloom, 

And shouted in his ear till he awoke 

This shibboleth of Hell, — ^^ Never y for ever!'' 

These words were sadder than the voice of Death 

Which calls a mother from a new-born babe, 



24 



SONGS FROM THE 



Blasting two lives at once ; and yet he dreamed, 

And they could never banish that bright dream 

From labyrinths of sleep's disordered realm ; 

And when he woke he wished it always night, 

That he might sleep forever — sleep and dream ; 

For one he loved stood ever in that sleep. 

Dividing it from the still sleep of death. 

He loved that dream ; and once he wrote upon 

The fly-leaf of a book which she had loved, 

And sanctified by her perusal oft, 

The sum and substance of it. Here it is : — 



" O, come with me, dear soul. 

Thou breathing dream, thou vision of delight ; 
O, walk with me, while Sleep, with stinted dole 

Deals out the calm, still night ! 

" O, let me fondly press 

Thy gentle presence to my heart grown cold, 
And hold thy hand in one long, long caress, 

As in the days of old. 



GRANITE HILLS. 25 

" For when the rising sun 

Shall bid the sleeping world in light rejoice, 
My sands of happiness will all be run — 

I shall not hear thy voice ! 

" For some cold Fate hath led 

Thy feet from paths which I must walk alone ; 
And I must think of thee as of the dead 

Whom I may call my own. 

" But I will higher prize 

Thy love, that but a memory can be, 
Than gold, or fame, or life — thy pure calm eyes 

Will ever look on me." 



He wrote ; but words of his must needs be cheap, 

With wounded love for their interpreter ; 

And when he saw how, with averted face. 

Love passed him by, — how eyes that once would smile 

And laugh to greet him, now were hard and cold, — 

His brain grew blank with misery : and for days 

Aching upon the verge of madness hung \ 



26 SONGS FROM THE 

Resisting brave ; so an encumbered soul, 
With horror, at the perilous brink of Hell 
Halts with a shuddering cry ! And even so 
A wounded bird that, fainting, flutters on 
The edge of some dark precipice, and hears 
The hollow-sounding chasm, and the floods 
Enraged, that fret and dash and foam below, 
All weak, and torn and helpless, barely clings 
Upon the sickly shrubbery, and saves 
The little life that throbs within its breast ! 
His soul drank in the bitterness and gall 
Of twenty years, congealed into one draught 
Of most accursed rue ! As the maniac, . 
Who, shivering with passion and despair. 
Gnaws at the flesh of his own arm, and drinks 
The luscious drops of blood with hellish joy, 
Then at fantastic and pursuing shapes 
Which come and go at his capricious will, 
He stares, and flies, then turns and stares again, 
With speechless eyes and foam-beslavered mouth, 
His heart, forsaken, preyed upon itself ! 
O then, with strangest sense of coming ill, 
He felt the fountains of his life dry up, 



GRANITE HILLS. 

As by a drouth, when still the Dog Star climbs 

The heavens with the glaring August sun, 

To rain malaria on the groaning earth, 

The waters in the meadows are dried up, 

And Nature, for a thousand weary miles. 

Lifts all her pinched and shriveled blades to God, 

And piteously in silence prays for rain ! 



27 



How weary are the toilsome days. 
The nights to us how lone and drear, 

How little do we find for praise 

'Mid all things smiling round us here. 

When those we love, as twilight loves a star, 

Are gone forever, or divided far ! 

Then let this halting song be sad, 

As well befits so sad a theme ; 
If I should make its music glad 

I must retrace life's troubled stream, 
And stand again where youth and hope await 
The laggard years, the bright decrees of fate. 

Then I could touch a happier string. 
And all its notes would joyful be ; 



28 SOJVGS FROM THE 

I should not know the truth I sing, 

That hfe is mostly vanity ! 
O sunny skies, alas ! O sparkling streams ! 
O glowing hopes of youth ! O golden dreams ! 



Time after time Morn, from the rosy East, 

Stepped glowing, in the presence of the sun 

Scattering her shining pearls, but not for him ; 

Night after night from secret cavern stole. 

And darkened on the shoulders of the world. 

But brought to him no rest, but only sleep 

By fitful dreams and mocking ghosts disturbed. 

Day after day, he heard her footstep light. 

The music of her voice about him still. 

The ripple of her laughter, low and sweet, 

That mocked him with a vision of the past 

As dead as Pharaoh's mummy ! In the world 

He thought there was no faith, nor truth in Heaven ; 

That even friendship was a breathing lie 

Which led men captive ever, and betrayed ! 

Then the old Adam, lingering in his heart, — 

That lingers yet in every human heart, — 



GRANITE HILLS. 

Grew huge in its proportions, and essayed 

To talk to him of vengeance ! Every nerve 

Was like a hissing serpent's forked tongue 

That darts defiance from a spiteful coil ! 

Anon, he took his pen, which long had been 

To him an instrument of pleasant toil. 

And wrote the thoughts that crowded on his brain, 

Demanding utterance, and gave to her 

The messages he never could recall — 

The useless words, which like the sower's seed 

Fell on the rock and stubble, and were lost ! 

Who would not fain recall some idle word. 

Some bitter word that stung a faithful heart, 

Or widened more the breach of broken faith 

Which else had healed ? Alas ! it cannot be. 

Not God Himself could call such truant home. 

Sometimes he touched on a familiar chord 

And wrote love stanzas ; yet he could not help 

But every strain should breathe of love forsworn. 

She took them with the calm indifference 

Of level-fronting eyes. With impish hate, 

A lurking sneer stood in their orbs and mocked. 

And when his back was turned, and he was gone, 



29 



30 SOJVGS FROM THE 

She came and handed them to me, and said, 
With just a little devil in her eye 
And scornful laugh, ' See what this madman writes ! 
I took the paper from her hand and read : — 

" Could I but clasp the hand 

Whose gentle touch once more could bless, 
I should not seek, in this fair land, 
Forgetfulness ! 

" Or, could I hear the tongue 

That once to me, at eve and morn. 
Spoke sweeter words than angels sung 
When Christ was born, 

" My soul would lift her woe 

And let the light of morning in ; 
Then I might feel the joy I know 
I cannot win." 

And where her footstep fled, he followed on 
Regardless, as one, lost in a wide wood. 
Follows the ignis fatuus to his doom. 



GRANITE HILLS. 



31 



And once she turned, and looked him in the face 

In hateful silence, bitterer than speech ! 

Scorn gathered at the corners of her mouth. 

And on her brow defiance sat superb ! 

Imperiously she stamped her little foot, 

And stabbed him with the daggers of her eyes ! 

Then, rising to the height of Nilus' queen, 

She smote him into silence with a word 

That hissed between white lips like angry flame ! 

' Arthur, I hate you ! hate you ! stupid fool ! ' 

And then the very room in which he stood, 

Full of the purple twilight of the stars, 

Grew like the stifled atmosphere of Hell ! 

He started from his painful reverie, 

And still he saw those stern, defiant eyes. 

Darker than midnight where the pathless seas 

Are blackened with the storm ! And still they seemed 

To him like fiery stars that shone in Heaven, 

Twin stars that gleamed upon the crest of Heaven 

With unrelenting anger, and he cast 

His fatal horoscope of life from them ! 

And moved by some strange impulse then, he did 

The deeds he would not do for length of days, 



32 



SONGS FROM THE 



Or trumpet breath of fame, forever blown, 

Or all the hoarded gems of hoary time, 

And thought to force a flame that could not burn 

By stirring its cold ashes. Ah, as soon 

Call back the breath of life to that still form 

Where Death's grim seal is set, and ask its lips, 

Pale, silent, dumb, to speak of love again ! 

The fairest flower that ever bloomed on earth. 
Whose smell and touch are life's amenities, — 
The flower that blossoms over mutual hearts, 
And sends its roots down to their lowest depths 
And draws its double nourishment from both, — 
Had withered ; and no mortal power could lift 
Its drooping petal up, its life restore ! 
And when his halting reason had returned. 
And sat again supreme upon its throne, 
He saw it all, — and turned his steps away. 
Chastened and sad, but with a great resolve 
To stand henceforth in Truth's dim battle line. 
And fight, for her, the conflict to the end ! 
' Farewell, farewell ! ' He took me by the hand. 
And could have wept, had tears availed him then ; 



GRANITE HILLS. 

He gazed upon his stern old sire, and saw 
The lines of sadness on his aged face, 
And prayed a blessing on his silver hair ; 
He kissed the patient mother, who had borne 
Him in her arms, and soothed his infant cry — 
Then crossed the threshold that shall nevermore 
Sound with his coming feet, and to the whirl 
Of towns and cities bent his weary way. 
Bearing his burden with him. 

Evermore, 
Strange faces were about him, and new scenes 
Rose on his vision. — Years and years, and still 
Unrest was his familiar. — On the shore 
Or on the sea he had no peace, till time, 
The great avenger, laid the mocker low. 
The years were all his friends, and on his face 
They wrote their tender farewells and passed on — 
And every wrinkle time made on his brow 
It kindly smoothed a wrinkle from his life, 
Until at length, the sorrow in his heart 
Became a cherished memory, and he grew 
Like one content : yet sometimes to his brain 



33 



34 SONGS FROM THE 

The old thoughts would return ; old faces come, 
Like guests unbidden where no feast is made, 
Expectant hunger staring in their eyes ; 
And then, perchance, a tear would dim his own 
At thoughts of home ; then he would write to me. 
As one he loved and trusted, what he felt, 
His revery in the far and foreign land. 
These are the poems which he sent to me : — 



IF ? 



When time for us is done, 
If we should meet, upon some far-off shore. 

Beyond the stars and sun. 
Should we recall the days that are no more. 

Their fitful courses run ? 

If it indeed were Heaven, 
With all the bliss by priest or saint foretold, 

A largess to us given, 
I could recall an hour, a thousand-fold 

O'ermatching this one even : 



35 



GRANITE HILLS. 

When, by thy window-tree, 
.We plighted faith forever to be true, 

And you, love, smiled on me, 
While, from a dwarf, my soul to thine upgrew 

And filled itself of thee ! 



Or, if above — below. 
The seething wrath of Milton's Hell should roll 

On one wide overthrow, 
I could recall, to ease my aching soul, 

An hour of bitterer woe : 

When faith had none to trust, 
And love, we thought could never, never die, 

Lay buried in the dust — 
A Sodom apple, a rose-tinted lie, 

A thing for moth and rust ! 



ON A PICTURE SET IN GOLD. 

O still imprisoned face, that crossed 
My path when I could well rejoice 



36 SOJVGS FROM THE 

In love's bright dream, I know the voice 
That made thee sweet, to me, is lost ! 

For those who live we grieve the most — 
Not dead, but lost ! O saddest word 
Lips ever uttered, or ear heard ; — 

The living only are the lost. 

I know not where her pleasures be ; 

What home is gladdened by her smile ; 

What music soft she hears, the while 
I hear the music of the sea. 

I am a wanderer now ; I stand 
Upon the deck and woo the gale ; 
Loud winds are groaning in the sail 

That bears me to a distant land. 

And when beneath the toiling sea 
The burning sun goes down to rest, 
I dream of her, that she is blest, — 

Does she as often think of me ? 



GRANITE HILLS. 

I pray not, if it gives her pain ; 
If it recalls one fault of him, 
Who would not that a tear should dim 

The eyes he ne'er will see again. 

And this is all my heart can hold, 
This picture, full of mimic grace, 
A sunbeam, flashed upon her face, 

And hidden in a case of gold. 

But it recalls the hour of bliss. 

To which our years, like streams, were set ; 

When lips, and hearts and souls, were met 
In love's long, long, delightful kiss. 

We saw the lover's moon outswung 
Above the blue Joe English Hill ; 
We heard the music of the rill, 

And madrigals by breezes sung. 

She then was Nature's worshipper ; 

She loved each budding shrub and tree ; 



37 



2,8 SONGS FROM THE 

She showed her fairest flowers to me, 
But then, I only looked at her ! 

I said, — " Behold the moon on high, 
She seems to smile on love's emprise ; " 
And she, wdth passion in her eyes, 

" Love is so sweet it cannot die ! " 

Love, then we thought no fate could chill, 
Nor age abate its ardent breath ; 
That Love was lord of life, and Death 

But made his kingdom wider still ! 

But I have learned of fate since then, 
How vain a thing it is, to trust 
A thing of beauty, frailty, dust. 

And of the sinuous ways of men. 

And I have learned that love can be 
All fair without and dark within, 
A gilded crust that hides the sin 

Of broken faith and constancy ! 



GRANITE HILLS. 39 

But other hands than mine shall press 

To eager lips this fruit of gold, 

And other arms than mine enfold 
This serpent with a fond caress. 

For, by the certain law of God, 
There is no pain, however sore, 
But hearts will feel, have felt before, — 

The wine-press not alone is trod. 

And this is Nature's kindest plan, 

That every sorrow there can be, 

And every joy, — one is for thee, 
And one is for thy brother man. 

Hail, and farewell : my plaint is done ; 

My soul shall be content to smart, 

If I may kindle in my heart 
Courage to suffer and pass on. 

For, somewhere on these human shores 
Where beat the ceaseless waves of time, 



40 



SONGS FROM THE 

Where men are covered with the grime 
Of ancient sins and modern sores, — 

Aye, somewhere I shall find expressed, 
In language that my soul can read, 
Kind Nature's promise, guaranteed, 

Of peace in some fair land of rest. 



THE DAY OF LONG AGO. 



O, Time, upon whose viewless wing 
The fleeting seasons come and go, 

Instruct my truant Muse to sing 
The better days of long ago ! 

The present may, perchance, beguile 
My passions while its moments last ; 

But fortune's best and dearest smile 
Is buried in the silent past. 

And I would gladly now resign 
All that the future has for me. 



GRANITE HILLS. 

To spend an hour of sweet lang syne, 
Dear Mary, with the past and thee. 

But that, alas ! can never be 

The fate of Fancy's hapless son ; 

And unrelenting Destiny, 

With cruel finger, beckons on. 

I see the future, dark and dim, 
Before my mortal vision rise ; 

The years, like banished seraphim, 
Are marching by me in disguise. 

My days are dark and cheerless now. 
Since time cannot reverse its flight ; 

Oblivion's hand is on my brow. 

And beckons down the pall of night. 

Yet sometimes in these darker hours 
I dream of better days in trust. 

But when I reach to pluck the flowers 
Of youth, they turn to senseless dust ! 



41 



42 



SONGS FROM THE 

New England ! on thy glorious hills 
I stand in thought, a moment free ; 

I hear the music of thy rills, — 
Nature's low notes of liberty ! 

And where my long lost love reclines, 
In welcome shade I kneel to woo ; 

And Nature's lyre of mountain pines 
Breathes soft as it was wont to do. 

But ah ! the witching vision flies, 

And facts are sterner things than dreams ; 
I think her darkly flashing eyes 

No longer see thy purling streams ! 

O, they have changed from what they were 
When last they shot their fire at me ; 

At least, such is my dream of her 
Upon this dark and stormy sea : 

That in a fairer clime above, — 

The climax of the dreams of this, — 



GRANITE HILLS. 

They wear the same old look of love, 
That once to me was more than bliss. 



43 



So ends my tale, with hearts dissevered wide : 

One 'midst green valleys of the rock and pine, 

Surrounded by the mighty hills, that lift 

Their heads majestic to the face of Heaven, 

Shoulder the dark gray summer mists, and wear 

The shining clouds like mantles of the gods ; 

And one, a wanderer by far-off seas, 

'Mid flowery vales and palm groves of the South. 

They met as travellers, for a little way. 

They plighted faith, with pledges each to each. 

And sacred vows of love ; then, with hot words, 

They parted, as a pleasant stream divides, 

Part to warm seas, through lands of verdurous bloom, 

Part to dark forests and the frozen North, 

To meet no more. God is their Judge, not I. 

If I could judge them I could also blot 

That which is written on the face of time. 

That God is God forever, and the Judge ; 



44 SONGS FROM THE 

That justice will not die or promise fail, 

While stand the hills or roll the heavenly spheres ! 

What man, presumptuous and over-bold, 

Essays to judge the human heart, or weigh 

Its impulse or its motive in a scale. 

When no man knoweth wisdom, what it is ? 

Or say, Thou fool ? or moralize, or preach ? 

O, who shall lay his fingers on its keys 

That tremble with a thousand passions wild, 

And say if they strike harmony or not. 

But the kind Maker of the instrument, 

Who, knowing all, is merciful and just ? 



And here I leave my friend ; but in my heart, 
I hold his memory green ; and all his thoughts 
I cherish as a string of precious pearls 
Which I have counted many, many times 
With tenderness and love. And ere I die, 
I'll take him by the hand — read in his face 
The record written by the stormy years. 
And hear his words anew. These I will plant 



GRANITE HILLS. 



45 



In sacred gardens of my memory, 

By that green spot where He the flowers of youth. 

Thou antiquarian of the careless soul, 

Delightful Memory ! I bid thee hail ! 

Thou standest by me with thy sweet, sad face, 

Morning and evening, and thy hands are full, 

A-dripping consolation, — giving back 

The gems I had forgotten or mislaid, — 

The dear forget-me-nots of other days. 

Thou seemest like a fair and patient nun, 

Counting a rosary of dew-kissed buds 

With earnest face and moving lips of prayer ; 

And if there be some cruel thorns concealed 

In the most precious rose-buds of thy string. 

They yet are ruddier than the lips of Eve, 

When first they crimsoned with the coursing blood 

And throbbing pulses of a glorious life ! 



46 SOIVGS FROM THE 



FREEDOM'S CALL. 1862. 



March, heroes, to battle 

For Freedom once more ; 
Where stern muskets rattle 

And loud cannons roar ! 
The flag of your glory 

Is trampled and red ! 
Its bright folds are gory, 

Its bearers are dead ! 

The blade of black treason 

Is raised to strike down 
Your charter of reason, 

America's crown ! 
And Liberty beckons 

The true and the brave ; 
Triumphant, she reckons 

The doom of the slave ! 



GRANITE HILLS. 

Go where the lance shivers, 

Brave sons of the free ! 
Go as your wild rivers 

Leap down to the sea ! 
Where Tyranny gathers 

Its hosts for the fray, 
Strike ! Strike like your fathers 

For Freedom today ! 

For, what is Freedom worth 

If your hearts shall quail ? 
Where is the hope of earth 

If your cause shall fail ? 
Go, ask the slave to tell 

In the prison pen ! 
Go, ask the dead who fell 

For the rights of men ! 



47 



48 SOJVGS FROM THE 



R. B. C. 1878. 



One, whose manly form is bended 

By the weight of many years, 
Sits beside me in the anguish 

Of a father's parting tears ; 
And in his aged face I see 

A radiant look of trust, 
While his steps are trembling downward 

To the silence of the dust. 

Yea, his feet are almost treading 

On the border land of peace. 
And the day bespeaks its coming 

When his pilgrimage will cease ; 
But his prayers have gone before him 

To the haven of his rest. 
And his deeds will never shame him, 

For he always did his best. 



GRANITE HILLS. 

Once his step was with the piping, 

And this withered arm was strong, 
Free to labor, quick to succor, 

Bold to smite the crest of wrong ; 
And his voice had all the sweetness 

Of the gentle summer breeze, 
Or strength of forceful winds that rnove 

The branches of the trees. 

He was fiery in his anger 

As a horse with nostrils wild. 
He was tender in his pity 

As a mother with her child. 
He was faithful in his loving 

As the storied loves of old, 
For his heart was pure, like water, 

And his mind like beaten gold. 

So, upon some pleasant morning, 
On the shining Hills of Truth, 

He will stand with friends departed, 
Living in immortal youth, 

And the years will seem like minutes 



49 



50 SONGS FROM THE 

That in music steal away, 
And their feet will leave no traces 
Where exists no mortal clay. 

Patient waiting on his footsteps 

Till his life is overcast, 
All our love can never pay him 

For his great love in the past ; 
But, we yet may meet and love him 

On some far, delightful shore. 
Where the loves of earth will blossom 

In the smile of God once more. 



THE RAINBOW. 

Behind the wild storm's onward march 
Where cloud on cloud uprears. 

Behold the rainbow's gleaming arch, 
Far-seen through rainy tears : 

A harbinger of morning fair, 
Soft winds and sunny skies, — 



GRANITE HILLS. 

A pictured thought of love, set where 
We fix our longing eyes. 

Bright bow of promise, linger on. 

Until we read aright 
The message God would write upon 

The stormy brow of night : 
That peace will follow in the path 

Of storms that smite amain, 
And rest will be the aftermath 

Of unremembered pain. 



ANNABEL. 

Sweetest lily of the valley 

By our summer-shaded stream, 
I have searched in nook and alley 

Where its crystal waters gleam ; ■ 
And here's a wild rose fair for your hair, 

Silver-laughing Annabel, 
Pink and red, it is a part of my heart 

And the love it may not tell. 



51 



52 



SONGS FROM THE 

Fairer than the dainty woman 

Praised by Camoen's love-lorn tongue ; 
Sweeter, since thou art more human, 

Than the Laura Petrarch sung ; 
Yet how queenly, how serenely, 

Happy dreamer, Annabel, 
Thou dost vanquish, while I languish, 

All my heart that loves thee well. 

In the years that lie before thee 

Like a river long and fair, 
Many hearts will love, adore thee, 

And in hope their fealty swear ; 
But surely never, e'en forever, 

Dainty-footed Annabel, 
Wilt thou find one better for love's fetter 

Than my own that loves thee well. 

But our names are not together 

Written on the roll of Fate ; 
Never bird of ebon feather 

With the gentle dove did mate ; 



GRANITE HILLS. 

So in sadness that's half gladness, 
Love's enchantress, Annabel, 

I will take it ere thou break it. 

Luckless heart ! and fare thee well. 



O, GENTLY TOUCH. 

Beloved, gently touch the string 

That breathes responsive to thy soul ; 
They must be tender notes that bring 

My senses in their sweet control ; 
Recall the time when I, a boy. 

Roamed in the wildwood, free from care, 
And you were full of thoughtless joy 

As any bird that sported there. 

My boat was on the waters then ; 

It danced along the silver stream ; 
And every sound of hill and glen 

Made music in our happy dream ! 
We watched the stars along the sky, 

The moon above the mountains fair ; 



53 



54 



SOATGS FROM THE 

We heard the night bird's plaintive cry 
Upon the gently startled air. 

My boat is gone, — and all is gone 

That made our lives so fair and sweet; 
And if the river floweth on, 

Its banks are trod by other feet ; 
Yet sometimes will your music dear 

Bring thoughts too deep for speech or tears, 
And in my heart I seem to hear 

The music of the vanished years. 



NOON BY LAKE SUNAPEE. 

'Neath groves of maple and the tall plumed pine 

By Sunapee's fair lake we linger long, 

Morn rises unto noon, and all the kine. 

On sun-bathed hills, the far-grouped shade trees 

throng ; 
In all the wood the wild birds pour their song 
From homes of rest in leafy branches cool ; 



GRANITE HILLS. 



55 



The plodding farmer, listening for the gong, 
Bathes his swart forehead in the limpid pool ; 
Calm as the blue depths of the quiet sky 
The glistening waters spread before the eye, 
While small white clouds, slow sailing from the west. 
Are mirrored in their bosom lovingly. 
Below where new-born lilies lie at rest 
Like affluent pearls on some fair lady's breast. 

Loveliest day of all the lovely summer, 

Dreamy, delicious, wearing on to eve. 

Monotoned by many a joyous hummer 

Whose loss ere long the browning earth will grieve, 

Hark ! the partridge, the impetuous drummer, 

Thrumming his love call in the dim old wood. 

Ruffling the stillness of its solitude ! 

The meadow lark, low in the scented clover, 

Holds converse with the matron of his brood ; 

Over long fields, the gray disporting plover 

Bends piping to the ground, an arc of song ; 

The crow upon the mountain calleth long. 

Or watcheth, from his signal perch forlorn, 

His consort pilfering the planted corn. 



56 SONGS FROM THE 

Oh, how delightful is the mountain air 

Cooled on thy crested water, Sunapee ! 

We wonder if lake Leman is more fair. 

More sweet the gales of storied Araby. 

We breathe the breath of lilies and the balm 

Of woods forever green, while from the calm, 

Like sounds of far-off voices drawing near, 

The coming of the summer wind we hear 

In the long branches rising like a psalm 

Of peace upon thy shore ; more sweet, more clear 

Than song of angels to the morning star, 

When, from the rifted darkness of old time, 

Kearsarge and Sunapee arose sublime 

To watch thy face forever, from afar. 



A FAREWELL TO JOE ENGLISH. 

Ah, woe is me ! At last it must be said : 
Farewell, old mountain, on whose verdant crest 
My boyhood's feet were ever wont to tread 
When morning smiled, — or, going to his rest, 
The slanting sun made splendor in the west. 



GRANITE HILLS, 57 

This day is all too sad ! a time for tears, 

The silent emblems of a grieving soul, 

To tremble on my lids ! O, happy years 

I leave behind me, mount o'er whom doth roll 

The angry clouds — the Storm King's ebon scroll ! 

My sires have dwelt beneath thy brow long years ; 
Thou wert to them a friend both true and fast ; 
Thy paths have known their feet, thy shade their tears, 
Through the dim seasons of the silent past ; 
And still to me a friend, first, always, last. 

When with a smile, the dappled Morning flung 
Her sun-bright glances on thy glowing crest. 
Entranced, I listened to the Druid tongue 
Of nature's friendship, and thy sylvan breast 
Became a temple, fit for prayer or rest. 

When, like a disc of burnished brass, the sun 
Swung low in heaven against the mottled sky, 
I watched the shadows climbing, one by one. 
Among thy centuried oaks, as noiselessly 
As though they grieved to see the daylight die. 



58 SOJVGS FROM THE 

Beneath thy shadow grew an artless maid, 

A daughter of the breezes and the sun ; 

Life bounded with her pulses, — light and shade 

Made riot on her face. — Alas, that one 

So young, should be to death by murder done ! 

To our blind senses it is strange indeed ! 

The fairest flowers are first of beauty shorn ; 

The loved of all, from hearts that break and bleed, 

In life's fair morning seem so rudely torn, 

While those are left, for whom we could not mourn. 

'Twas at thy foot the fair Se villa fell 
By Murder's ruthless hand. The virgin snow 
Drank her life blood, with his, the son of Hell, ^ 
Whose deed on earth made all the fiends below 
Chagrined with shame, a bloodier wretch to know ! 

He sleeps today within a culprit's grave. 

Unmarked, unknown, a curse upon his name ! 

O, deep Oblivion, let thy silent wave 

Blot out forever his unholy fame. 

The coward, the assassin and his shame ! 



GRANITE HILLS. 59 

But she will live forever, conquering death ; 
And when the Spirit of eternal good 
Shall pour along the summer gale his breath, 
Her chainless soul will wander in thy wood, 
Free as the air of thy sweet solitude ! 

Reclining here beneath this giant oak, 
Where oft the dusky wooer met his love, 
I hear the silence by her whispers broke. 
Soft as the cooing of a mated dove, 
Or far-heard echo of some choir above. 

And where within thy leafy recess lingers 
The wood-lark's music, like the songs of Aidenn, 
The wild rose leaves shall touch thy spirit fingers, 
And this cool grotto, with their perfume laden, 
Shall be thy shrine forever, hapless maiden ! 

And legends old are floating through my brain. 
Things of the past, surviving change and chance ; 
I see Joe English, in his plumes again, 
March down the war-trail of his weird romance — 
The painted savage and the wild war-dance ! 



6o SONGS FROM THE 

Now the red warriors glut their frenzied ire ! 
The Indian war-cry, with its dread alarms, 
Speaks far and wide of tomahawk and fire ; 
By burning cabins hear the clash of arms — 
The wail of death about the lonely farms ! 

When Liberty, from out her dungeon barred, 
Sent her faint cheer for Concord's battle won. 
The tyrant-loving Tories basely marred 
Thy fair traditions ; and from thy crest of stone, 
Hurled down, in effigy, great Washington ! 

Oh, let them have no pity, but the scorn 
Of freemen's sons through ages yet to be ! 
The craven enemies of men unborn 
Were these king-fawners, scorning to be free. 
When heroes lit the torch of Liberty ! 

The Arnolds of Perdition, justly damned ! 
Most grievous blot on thy tradition's page ! 
Their names shall be a stench in Hell, and, jammed 
In the black den where pains relentless rage. 
Let them repent a long, long, endless age ! 



GRANITE HILLS. 6 1 

But all is changed save thy unchanging form ; 
The conflict's diapason sounds no more, 
And naught disturbs thy silence but the storm 
That thunders on thy bosom as of yore, 
Nor calls Joe English from the spectral shore. 

And since those days the fleeting years of time 
Have borne into the past these visions gory ; 
And standing here, upon the verge sublime 
Of two eternities, I see thy story — 
Thy legends and traditions growing hoary. 

And now that changeless Fate, with stern decree, 
Calls me 'mid other lands and scenes to roam, 
Far from the friends I ever loved, and thee, 

mountain ! that, beside my early home, 
Liftest thy head up to the welkin dome, 

1 say farewell ! Then why do I stand here, 
And cavil at the things I cannot change ? 

I will resign myself unto my sphere 

And murmur not, though long and far I range, 

Making new friends where all is new and strange ! 



62 SONGS FROM THE 

Friend of my youth, farewell ! my dream is o'er ; 

O, come ! thou spirit that enchantment lends, 

Give me thy benediction, ere once more 

I go to other mountains, other friends, 

But none like thee, till life or memory ends ! 

And I will not forget the long, long days 

I've whiled away beneath thy oaken shade, 

Or strolled about thy pleasant woodland ways, 

Reading, in covert nook or sunny glade, 

Kind Nature's thoughts in rock and leaf and blade. 

And in the coming years, when far away, 

My bark is tossed upon life's troubled stream, 

My thoughts shall turn, O mountain old and gray, 

Back unto thee, my boyhood's early theme. 

Thou glorious pile, that meet'st the sun's first beam ! 

And I shall see, as I behold it now. 
The golden sunlight falling on thy face. 
Or fair cloud draperies hung aloft thy brow 
Encircling thee with forms of airy grace, — 
Then shall my heart yearn to this holy place. 



GRANITE HILLS. 63 



THE OLD RED HOUSE ON THE HILL. 

I AM dreaming tonight of my boyhood's prime, 
Of days that now seem like the sound of a rhyme 

When the voice of the singer is still ; 
And somebody's spirit is leading me back, 
Along a rough and a weary track, 

To the old red house on the hill. 

How well I remember that dearly loved spot ; 
No place could be dear where my Mary was not, 

No other my fancy could fill ; 
For oft when my feet were too weary to roam, 
I turned, like a pilgrim hastening home, 

To the old red house on the hill. 

And when the red moon was a-climbing the sky, 
And night spread its star-sprinkled banner on high, 

.We listened the lone whippoorwill ; 
And while we forgot all our sorrow and care, 



64 SOATGS FROM THE 

The poplar trees lifted their branches in prayer, 
By the old red house on the hill. 

Oh, the poplar trees stand by the old house yet — 
Their mumuring leaves, by the gentle dews wet, 

Are feeling the summer's warm thrill — 
But the maiden is gone from the open door, 
And my weary feet shall be rested no more 

In the old red house on the hill. 

Ah me ! Can it be ? Is it only a dream ? 
Shall I never again in the sunset's gleam. 

When the odors of evening distil 
Like ambrosial balm on the soft summer air. 
Press the hand and the lips that once waited me there 

In the old red house on the hill ? 

It's only a dream as I look at it now, 

With darkness and dust on the beautiful brow 

That I kissed by the old door-sill ! 
Will it be but a dream where she waits afar ? 
Shall we think, 'mid the vales of the evening star, 

Of the old red house on the hill 1 



GRANITE HILLS. 65 



A TRYST. 

It is over, and done. — 

We meet no more upon the hoary earth ; 
Thy new life is begun, 

Thy face is to the morning, thy new birth 
Beyond the rising of the sun. 

To thee, the glorious morn 

Will never wear to noon, or wane to eve, 
And bitterness and scorn 

Will nevermore thy gentle spirit grieve, 
Or make thy life forlorn — 

So, when the flying years 

Shall o'er my head their shifting pageant roll 
Of joy and strife and fears, 

I'll find thy place of rest, O whitest soul, 
Made pure by grief and tears ! 

And if my mortal sin 

Shall lift its front before me, or shall bar 



66 SONGS FROM THE 

The goal that I would win, 

May thy pure spirit call, through gates ajar. 
Me, even me, within. 

Then bide a tryst for me, 

By silver stream or garden of delight, 
In realm of constancy — 

Out of the glooms of earth, through the dark 
night, 
I bend my steps to thee. 

And I shall clasp thy hand. 

And know, 'mid all the hosts, thy spirit face 
In that delightful land, 

Where love and liberty fill time and space, 
And make life sweet and grand ! 



NEW ENGLAND. 

Hail, birthplace of that glorious Liberty 

That broke the shackles from the bleeding slave ! 

Hail to thy mountains set above the sea, 

Lone watchers o'er thy sons and daughters brave ! 



GRANITE HILLS. 6/ 

The wide world knows thy record in the past, 

Thy steadfast purpose that no threats could awe ; 

It saw thy brave opinions rise at last, 
Firm set on truth, and broaden into law. 

On thy green hills our country's lyre was strung 
To notes exultant by the master hand ; 

By thy blest firesides were the lyrics sung 

That stirred the pulse of freedom in the land ! 

Justice and Order here made their abode — 
Here lit their altars with celestial flame ; 

And the eternal Providence of God 

Has multiplied the honors of thy name ! 

And far and wide thy spirit treads the earth, 
And mailed Oppression hath its slogan heard — 

The patient slave, by many a fireless hearth, 

Nerves his right arm ! Hope kindles at the word ! 

And, in a dream, I see the future rise, 
And Liberty's colossal Genius stands 



68 SONGS FROM THE 

Upon thy mountains that divide the skies, 
Proclaiming freedom unto all the lands ! 

And while upon thy lofty summits rest 

The golden sunlight and the summer cloud, 

Men shall be nourished on thy rugged breast, 
Who know the seasons when to speak aloud, — 

Men who can hew the sturdy forests down 
And do stern battle with thy glebe and rock ! 

Men who can build the State to high renown 

And keep it pure and safe from Faction's shock ! 

Go on, my country : the applauding ages 

Shall praise the deeds of thine immortal youth. 

And History's muse upon yet virgin pages 

Shall trace thy progress to the heights of Truth, 

Whence thou shalt see the glorious age begin, 

When Greed shall fail, and grim Oppression cease ; 

And nations shall conspire to usher in 

The years of God, the "thousand years of Peace." 



GRANITE HILLS. 69 



OUR ANGELS. 

We love to think they linger with us still ; 

That when our souls are full of longings deep, 
They come about us at their own sweet will 

And steal into our being, soft as sleep. 

Shall they not come whose sympathies were ours, 
The friends we loved most tenderly and true — 

Whose graves are fresh with spring's first offered 
flowers, 
And benedictions of the summer dew ? 

We long have kept the chambers of our hearts 
Garnished and swept with sacred care for them, 

And memory hoards, as year by year departs, 
Their love and friendship as a precious gem. 

We may not see them with our mortal vision, 
Nor hear the music they have just begun ; 

Still they may come to speak of fields Elysian, 
Or guide us to them when our work is done. 



70 



so Arcs FROM THE 



Spirits intangible — we know they come ! 

When our life tumults for a moment cease ; 
They speak to us, although their lips are dumb, 

And the great silence has a cry of peace. 

O, tender as the words of Christ that float, 
Full argosies of love, on time's wide sea, — 

More musical than Israfili's note, 

More loving than a mother's lullaby, — 

More beautiful than any face or form, 

Dearer than fame or love's divine behest, — 

Sweeter than sunshine after days of storm, — 
Are their still voices from a land of rest. 

These are our angels, — flesh and blood no more. 
As ere we laid them in our kindred earth ; 

And yet our souls may reach them, gone before. 
And gather strength from beings of new birth. 

These are our angels, for love cannot die, 

Nor yet in Heaven its tender lips be dumb, — 

Our heralds, who will watch, and fondly cry 

In the great Presence, " Lo, our friends, they come ! " 



GRANITE HILLS. 



CROSSES. 



71 



Weep not for those who leave us here, forlorn, 
To wear Heaven's glorious crown ; 

Death, at the gateway of the splendid morn. 
Lays all their crosses down. 

But we, who linger by their earthly places, 

Where yet are pain and tears, 
Must lift their crosses up, and turn our faces 

Toward immortal years. 

This world is full of fondest dreams that perish, 

Of hopes that die in pain ! 
There is a cross in everything we cherish. 

For pleasure or for gain. 

Friendship and love are good enough in season. 

But soon we mourn their loss. 
And cannot tell, by any human reason. 

Why each one has its cross. 



72 SOJVGS FROM THE 

The cross of Friendship is a bitter thing, 

When trusted friends depart ; 
The cross of Love — it has a sharper sting, 

That rankles in the heart ! 

One cross alone bears always a reward 

Which all may hope to win : 
It is the humble cross of Christ, the Lord, 

That cleanseth from our sin. 

And gentle Faith is holding it before us, 

O'er all life's stormy sea ; 
And Christ Himself is ever calling o'er us — 

" Arise, and follow me ! " 

And shall we bear that cross of patient sorrow 
Its thorns and then its flowers ? 

Or wait forever on the dim tomorrow^ 
When only now is ours ? 

Today is ours to live in, and to plod — 

To draw our borrowed breath ; 
Tomorrow's future, and belongs to God, 

And may belong to Death. 



GRANITE HILLS, 'J2i 



RETROSPECTIVE. 

Could man re-live his dead and buried years, 

And death's short pang gainsay, 
O, who would brave again the strife and fears 

Which have beset his way ? 

Who would retrace a rough and weary road 

With bleeding feet and sore ? 
O, who would carry life's too heavy load 

Through paths they had gone o'er ? 

Life's morning path is always bright to all 

In youth's fair vision seen ; 
A little further on, the shadows fall. 

And dark clouds intervene. 

And fruit we thought would melt upon our lips, 

Full lusciously and sweet — 
It turns to ashes at our finger-tips, 

And falls about our feet ! 



74 



SOJVGS FROM THE 

And yet God's mercy, could we find it out, 

Is with us day by day ; 
His love and pity are around about, 

And shine upon our way. 

And, as we near the outlet of the stream, 

Our souls within us sing, 
While, ever and anon, we catch a gleam 

Of some fair angel's wing. 

O, then we know that life's deep river runs 

Into a peaceful sea — 
That we shall find it, when our shortening suns 

Set in Eternity. 

And in that quiet haven moored at last, 

Secure from life's rude shocks, 
We shall rejoice, as sailors who have passed 

The breakers and the rocks. 



GRANITE HILLS. 75 



"WHEN WILL I COME TO THEE?" 

I WILL come to thee, my darling, when the first breath 
of the Spring 
Is breathed upon the bleakness of the snow encir- 
cled hill ; 

When the bluebird and the robin by the window-tree 
shall sing, 
And the sun has waked the music of the silver 
laughing rill. 

I will come to thee, my darling, I will greet thee sweet 
and low, 

I will call thee pure and holy, while I kiss thy beau- 
teous brow. 

When the soft green leaves are springing from the 

long-armed maple trees. 
And the buds of beauty glisten 'mid the verdure of 

the sod, 
When the Balm of Gilead freshens in the life-reviving 

breeze. 



76 SONGS FROM THE 

And rejoicing Nature lifts her myriad praises unto 
God. 

I will come to thee, my darling, I will greet thee sweet 
and low, 

I will call thee pure and holy, while I kiss thy beau- 
teous brow. 

When the fields are filled with music and the woods 
are thrilled with song, 
And the bobolink is pouring out his soul in music 
sweet. 

When the whippoor-will's low note is heard the dewy 
evening long. 
And the blue sky smiles above thee, and the green 
leaves kiss thy feet. 

I will come to thee, my darling, I will greet thee sweet 
and low, 

I will call thee pure and holy, while I kiss thy beau- 
teous brow. 



Love is sweetest in all seasons of the precious boons 
of earth. 



GRANITE HILLS. 



77 



Yet still sweeter 'mid the jubilee of meadow, wood 
and hill. 

Therefore, when the loves of Nature have their new 
and glorious birth, 
With madrigal of mocking-bird and plover piping 
shrill, 

I will come to thee, my darling, I will greet thee sweet 
and low, 

I will call thee pure and holy, while I kiss thy beau- 
teous brow. 

A WISH. 

I WISH I had the dove's fleet wing 

To seek my native shore. 
That I might hear my mother sing 

The songs she sung of yore. 
I'd stand where now my father stands, 

And turns to Heaven his face. 
And beckons, with his aged hands, 

A blessing on the place. 

And sitting in the old arm-chair. 
To recollection dear, 



yS SONGS FROM THE 

I'd lay aside each burdening care 
Throughout the long, long year ; 

And one I loved should welcome me 
With laughter and with tears ; 

And love and peace and rest should be 
The fullness of my years. 

In vain ! in vain ! it cannot be ; 

No dove will lend its wing ; 
The evil fate that follows me 

Leaves nothing but its sting ! 
And all the fires of youth are dead, 

And all its loves are cold ; 
And all the tender words are said 

That thrilled my heart of old. 

And now upon a stormy sea, 

The waves break round my bark ; 
And Fate's cold finger beckons me 

Out of the night so dark ! 
I hear the fierce winds rise and fall, 

I hear the dark sea roar ; 
But never a voice I loved shall call 

My name upon the shore. 



GRANITE HILLS. 



ALONE. 



79 



The Queen of Silence sails along 
The bannered concave of the sky, 

And I would hail her face with song, 
Were not my fount of feeling dry. 

The jewels of her sweeping train, 
Above the wide expanse of night, 

Illumine all the heavenly plain 

With glory from the realms of light ! 

On them I gaze, as in a dream, 
While in their spangled course they roll, 
And to my fevered sense they seem 
Relentless eyes of fire, that read, 
Beholding every thought and deed, 
The secrets of my soul ! 

And I could dash, defiant, down. 
My cup that overbrims with pain ; 



8o SONGS FROM THE 

But that I feel the angry frown 
Of Destiny, in heart and brain, 
And that to plead with her is vain ! 

Once I could feel as others felt ; 

For others' weal I had a care; 
There was a time when I have knelt, 

In suppliance, at the hour of prayer. 

But now my hope is crushed, indeed ; 

The one I loved the best is gone ; 
And in my hour of darkest need, 

I stand forsaken and alone ! 

Darkness and Desolation ! where, 
Where is the storied land of rest ? 

The balm to heal the wounds of care, 
Or peace to calm a troubled breast ? 

In all the vastness of the night, 

I see them not — the Hills of Light ! 



GRANITE HILLS. 8 1 



REVERIE. 



REVERIE ! how sweet is thy relief, 

When hateful thoughts and pain the mind control ; 
So easeful is thy sensuous dream, that grief 

Flies like a thing affrighted from my soul ; 

I hear the bell upon the church tower toll, — 
Far in the Heavens, I see the fair white moon 

(Princess of Solitude, she seems to roll 
Away into the darkness all too soon), — 

While I go back with thee, year after year, 
And stand again beside my mother's knee ; 

1 hear my father's words of hope and fear. 
And know a brother's hand to pilot me. 
O, sweetest dream that ever yet could be 

Wet with the consecration of a tear ! 

I rest in thy embrace, a moment free, 
With home's dear music breathing at my ear. 

And now I feel thy drowsy touch, O Sleep ! 
Friend of the friendless, true forevermore I 



82 SONGS FROM THE 

Angel of Mercy, drying eyes that weep, 

And pouring balm in wounds that trouble sore ! 
I walk with thee upon the mountains hoar. 

Or linger in still valleys, cool and sweet, 

Where friends, returning from the silent shore, 

Go by me with hushed lips and noiseless feet. 

DESPONDENCY. 

O, IS there in this wide and stirring world 

One heart, that keeps a tender love for me ? 
One sacred spot where, passion's banner furled, 

I might kneel down and worship, trustingly, 
The Holy Spirit whose unslumbering eye 

Surrounds all spaces with the boundless sweep 
Of its far ken — time and eternity 

And all the secrets of the pathless deep ? 

O, friend, in days that are forever gone. 

Has thy pure heart that loved me once grown cold ? 
Still must I go my weary way alone, 

And nevermore thy happy face behold ? 
Then life is vain ! I feel the icy finger 



GRANITE HILLS. 83 

Of fate laid heavily upon my soul ; 
And faith is dead, and love no more may linger 
To soothe or bless, with half divine control. 

And from its dark and gloomy place afar, 

I see the black wings of the night descend ; 
In all the Heavens there is no steadfast star. 

And Hope is fled, who was my best, last friend ! 
My days are like a dim remembered dream, 

A spectre of the darkness all forlorn , 
My rest at last is Lethe's silent stream, 

A shoreless sea, a night without a morn ! 

THE LIGHT MEN USE. 

To those who use the precious light from Heaven, 

That, in some measure, comes to every soul, 
More light, more knowledge, wider views are given 

Until the future, like an open scroll, 
Reveals its secrets in the steady glare 

Of spiritual light, till mortal eyes 
Behold the Hills of Promise standing fair 

In summer lands and under radiant skies. 



84 SONGS FROM THE 

More knowledge is foreknowledge to some men 

Who use it wisely, ever reaching higher 
The rugged steeps, whence broaden to their ken 

The full fruition of the soul's desire. 
So men become as angels, standing square 

Upon the heights that overlook the world — 
Below, the darkened valleys — above them fair 

Are truth's white banners to the winds unfurled. 

There is no need that man should be a clod. 

Senseless and blind — a brute amidst the flowers - 
For, in all ages, men have climbed to God 

Through perilous ways by dimmer light than ours. 
Therefore lead on, lead on, divinest light, 

Until our feet shall touch the gleaming spheres, 
Where there shall be no sorrow and no night. 

No room for doubt, no cause for pain or tears. 

And there shall men rejoice when life is passed ; 

Not as newcomers, by great fortune blest. 
But as long travellers, who have reached at last 

Their journey's end, and lay them down to rest ; 
And peace and rest, forevermore, shall be 



GRANITE HILLS. 85 

By living streams enjoyed in fairest clime, 
And God Himself shall give them liberty 
Larger than all the hopes or dreams of time. 

FREDERICKSBURG. 

Lift up the Stars and Bars, and wave 
The emblem high, with rebel yell, 

Above the field where, life to save. 

Brave Freedom fought, and fighting fell ! 

Exult in deeds of blackest shame ! 

Exalt thy heroes to the sky ! 
But treason's curse will blight thy name. 

Thy cause, despised of men, will die ! 

Boast that fair Liberty is dead, 

While Northmen, weeping, stand around ; 

And that ye saw her gory head 

And bosom bleeding on the ground. 

Let Slavery exult awhile, 

And lift its reeking chains on high ; 



86 SONGS FROM THE 

We pour upon the burning pile 

The blood of men who dare to die ! 

It will prevail ! the signs are good ; 

The eagles of our Northern crags 
Come down to cheer the multitude, 

And perch above their battle-flags ! 

And here we swear by Truth and Right, 
A lie thine oracles have told ! 

The Sons of Freedom yet shall smite, 
As Gideon smote the hosts of old ! 

There yet are patriots in this land, 
The grandsons of old Lexington ; 

From Maine unto the Golden Strand, 
In wrath, their heart-throbs beat as one ! 

The useless plow shall rust afield, 
The hammer on the anvil rest ; 

While countless mothers bring the shield. 
And fire the hero's dauntless breast ! 



GRANITE HILLS. 8/ 

Great souls arise — are marching on, 

To live or die for Liberty ! 
The strength of noble fathers gone 

Survives to battle for the free ! 

We light fair Freedom's torch anew ! 

The brotherhood of men, — we cry ! 
And ere the false shall rule the true, 

Its flame in patriot blood shall die ! 

A REVERIE. 

The bloom is on the apple tree, 

The fields are specked with gold. 
And I will walk in dreams with thee, 

Thou dearest friend of old ; 
And years, too full of joy to last, 

Shall pass me, one by one. 
The tender footfalls of the past, 

A moment heard — and gone. 

And stay thy flight, delightful dreams, 
I would not know the truth ; 



88 SONGS FROM THE 

I'll walk with thee again what seems 

The glorious hills of youth ; 
And by a far, far window-tree 

Beneath the summer sky, 
A tender voice shall speak to me 

Of love that cannot die. 

Of love that cannot die ? Alas ! 

It lives in dreams alone ; 
The swallow and the rose will pass, 

But not the senseless stone ! 
And I shall see thy smiling face 

No more — no more thy tears — 
Nor yet the semblance of thy grace 

Beyond the flying years. 

Then walk with me in dreams where stand 

The sun-clad hills of old ; 
'Tis something worth to touch Love's hand, 

Albeit dead and cold ! 
To greet thy face is something worth 

Although in dreams it be, 
Since we shall never meet on earth. 

Nor yet on Time's wide sea. 



GRANITE HILLS. 89 



A DREAM OF YOUTH. 

How softly now the shades of night, 

The hills and valleys fair enfold ; 
Care lifts her dusty robes for flight, 

And rest recalls the days of old — 
And this I hold the best of life, 

That when the years, like shadows, fall 
About our ways with trouble rife, 

Fond memory can remount them all. 

Memory, charmer of my soul ! 

I walk with thee the fields of time ! 

1 feel thy magic touch control 

My spirit like a vesper chime ; 
And while in silent reverie 

I dream the quiet night away. 
The thoughts of youth come back to me, 

And voices of another day. 

How tenderly, how lovingly 

They speak of those by Love installed ! 



90 



SONGS FROM THE 

Friends forever, they seem to me 

To answer when their names are called ; 

And so, with pride, I stand again, 
Full-statured, by my mother's knee ; 

I feel, in sweet surcease of pain. 
Thy thrill of life, O Liberty ! 

Anew we climb the breezy hills, 

Green sloping to the glorious sun. 
The music of a thousand rills 

Comes floating through my brain as one ; 
And friends and playmates, scattered wide, 

Come sailing o'er the summer seas ; 
I hear their bounding steps of pride, 

Their laughter like a mountain breeze. 

Once more I hear my father call 

Along the dewy fields at morn ; 
I walk with him, the loved of all, 

Through meadows, by the tasseled corn : 
But, lo ! the bannered morning comes ! 

My dreams, affrighted at the sound. 
Like silence, when the martial drums 

Confuse the listening air around, 



GRANITE HILLS. 

Take wing and fly ; and care returns 

To make her daily rounds with strife, 
And labor at her altar burns 

Her flesh and blood ! And this is life. 
And, crowned with bays of age sublime, 

My father bends his wearied knee, 
While, from the silent camp of Time, 

The years steal marches upon me. 

But, in the light of faith secure, 

I turn my face to Heaven and cry : 
Lift up our thoughts and make them pure, 

And make our aspirations high ! 
And brighter days and fairer youth 

Shall yet be ours in larger fee — 
When, in the land of Love and Truth, 

God gives us freedom with the free. 

WHEN SUMMER SMILES. 

When summer smiles the happy flowers 

Lift up their faces sweet, 
Companions of the sunny hours 



91 



92 SONGS FROM THE 

They bloom about our feet ; 
But when the winds of autumn blow 

From mountains bleak and cold, 
They withered grow and lay them low 

Within the cold, damp mould. 

So thou art vanished from our sight, 

O dearest friend, and best ; 
I hear the moaning winds at night 

About thy place of rest ; 
No morn will wake thy voice to praise, 

No eve thy lips to prayer ; 
Sweet memories of bygone days 

Thy ways, thy face so fair. 

But when the chill of winter yields 

To balmy airs of Spring, 
The flowers that sleep in frosted fields 

Will bloom — the birds will sing. 
So, from the thrall of pain and death 

Thy patient soul upsprung ; 
And easeful death that took thy breath 

But loosed in Heaven thy tongue. 



GRANITE HILLS. 

We know the pure and good, like thee, 

By winds of death o'erblown, 
Can never perish utterly — 

God never lost His own ! 
The moon and stars may fail to shine, 

The sun itself grow pale, 
But love like thine, the Love Divine, 

Will never, never fail. 

THE SWEETEST WORD. 

Like rain upon the thirsting flower. 

Whose leaves are pinched and dry. 
That many a long and weary hour 

Hath prayed unto the sky, — 
Hath prayed with pleading face at morn, 

At noon with lifted eye. 
Hath bent, ere night, its head forlorn 

On desert sands to die ; 

So come the tender words to me, 

" I will forgive — forget ! " 
Sweet are all words of charity, 



93 



94 



SONGS FROM THE 

But these are sweetest yet. 
O blessed words ! Long may they be 

To love's grand music set ! 
One breathes a sound from Galilee, 

And one from Olivet. 



I WALK WITH THEE. 

I WALK with thee in dreams at night 

By a gently winding stream, 
The elm trees, in their verdure bright, 

Are shading my fair dream ; 
The waters murmur soft and low. 

The birds sing out their glee ; 
And sweeter far than music flow 

Thy tender words to me. 

How oft in brighter days we strayed 

Beside that shaded stream ; 
The south wind kissed thee, fairest maid, 

O, then it was no dream ! 
But now, I know no more we meet. 



GRANITE HILLS. 

We walk the fields no more — 
Thy face is to the morning, sweet, 
Mine to the sunset shore. 



95 



Time, lay thy hand on me kindly, 
Oblivion, close o'er the past ; 

If I loved the beautiful blindly, 
O, why should love's memory last ? 

1 would I were resting, and never 

Recalling the dreams that are lost ; 
I would not be, now and forever, 

Recrossing the streams I have crossed. 

I know I was nothing but human, 

I feel thy humanity now ; 
Alas, thou wert only a woman. 

To write on the waters thy vow ! 
And the waters have gone to the sea. 

Thy vows to the echoless shore ; 
And I would their remembrance with me 

Could perish, and vex me no more. 



96 SOJVGS FROM THE 



A PLEA FOR A HEART 

Give back thy heart to me ! 
The years are shod with silence and they fly — 
Our days will soon be overcast, and I 

Would comfort thee. 

To me why art thou dumb, 
Remembering not the joys of other years, 
Or that within the grave no sighs or tears 

Or love can come ? 

The night is overhead ; 
It darkens on the confines of the day, 
And when it falls, beneath the sodden clay 

I shall be dead. 

If you should love me then. 
And call my name with piteous moan and sigh, 
From the great space of peace I could not cry, 

Or love again I 



GRANITE HILLS. 97 

For on that silent shore 
To which our steps are bending, day by day, 
All earthly loves and dreams are cast away 

For evermore. 

And if too late, coo late. 
Relenting, you forgive the bitter word, 
Your voice will be a music all unheard, 

A wail of fate ! 

For then how poor, how vain 
Were tender words, or tears, or deep regret 
To one in death's long sleep, where men forget 

Pleasure and pain I 

Give back thy heart, my love. 
The Ark still floats upon the perilous sea, 
The windows of my soul are wide to thee, 

Wing-weary dove ! 



98 SONGS FROM THE 



SONNETS. 
I. 

VESPER BELLS. 

In far-off steeples chime the vesper bells, 
Calling to prayer ! Full sweet their music swells, 
Voicing for me loved melodies of yore, 
And life's first beautiful and bygone dream, — 
Breathing of lips that I shall press no more. 
Of friends that perished on the shore where roll 
The waves of Lethe's dark and silent stream. 
Of speaking eyes that looked into my soul 
And closed their lids forever ! — parting tears, 
And words that sound across the gulf of years ! 
Speak on, O vesper bells, with voices sweet ! 
Soothe with soft tones the wearied brain of care. 
Call back the vanished years, and let them meet 
For dear remembrance at the hour of prayer. 



GRANITE HILLS. 99 



II. 



THE BROWN THRUSH. 

Brown minstrel of the summer wood, that sings, 
Poised on a spray out-hung in breezes free, 
How sweetly from thy bubbling breast upsprings 
The riot of exultant melody ! 
Thy song is of green valleys, mountain walled, 
Of daisy-sprinkled mead and glinting stream ; 
Thou art the sweetest voice that ever called 
A mate to tryst, a dreamer from his dream. 
Melodious juggler ! How thy wizard tongue 
Outrolls the note of every woodland bird ; 
Thy lay, untutored, is as naively sung 
As when in Eden first thy voice was heard — 
And men will listen to thy rapturous glee 
When we are dead, and praise thy minstrelsy. 



lOO SONGS FROM THE 



III. 



O CHARMING Woman, empress of the heart ! 

Queen of the home, — first gift of God to man ! 

How false, how true, how frail, how fair thou art 

The bitter and the sweet of Nature's plan ; 

Half of the ill on earth by thee is planned. 

And yet thou art an angel to command 

In all except the pinions to arise ! 

In darkened chambers, where the fevered brain 

Grows wild, — wherever comes despair or pain, — 

Thou comest like a god in lowly guise ! 

Thy tender pity and thy soothing hand 

Are balms of mercy dropping from the skies ! 

Thy realm is boundless and thy sceptre free ; 

Love is thy crown, thy wand is sympathy. 



GRANITE HILLS. lOI 



IV. 



If all the wrongs of earth, our low estate, 

In Heaven are righted and all tears dried up, 

If there is broke Fate's poison-tinctured cup 

Which men have drank to the dim brink of death, 

Why should we punish or pursue, or hate 

Foes of a passing hour ? Why waste our breath 

In curses more than vain ? Have we not heard 

" Vengeance is mine " ? O, how that fearful word, 

A naked dagger, through the ages runs 

From Eden unto Judgment ! The dark, dead 

Centuries the Dictum heard ! and till the suns 

Stand still in Heaven, men shall hear ! " Dust to 

dust " 
Is not more true : yet God may we not trust ? 
" Justice is Mine," hath He not also said ? 



I02 SONGS FROM THE 



How like a flickering candle, burning low, 

And going out in utter nothingness, 

Is this poor life begun in others' woe. 

And quickly ended in its own distress ! 

How like a ship upon an angry sea, 

With breakers on the right hand and the left, 

Of chart and compass cruelly bereft, 

And grating on the sharp rocks shudderingly, 

To those who know not, and can never know, 

The luxury of a pilot out of woe ! 

Therefore, O come^ divinest pilot, Hope, 

With thy beloved sister, gentle Faith, 

And lead us from the wilderness where grope 

The grisly forms of Misery and Death ! 



GRANITE HILLS. 



VI. 



103 



If, after all these disappointing years, 

In some far land we meet, beloved soul, 

Beyond all sorrow and the stern control 

Of change and death, and time, with all its tears, 

Shall we recall the days that are no more. 

When youth, with castles builded fair, was ours ? 

And, walking by the far, remembered shore. 

We read the language of the stars and flowers 

In love's delicious dream — its prophecy 

Of hopes full-crowned in golden years to be ? — 

To be ? — They are not ! If they ever come, 

The happy years our vision saw arise, 

It will be Heaven indeed ! Ah, doubts, be dumb,- 

And faith, look upward and beyond the skies ! 



I04 SONGS FROM THE 



VII. 



How oft we dream of happy fields elysian, 
Fair lands of rest, but know not where they lie ; 
We only know they lie beyond our vision 
On some far islands of the boundless sky. 
Then let us make no weak or fretful cry — 
Fate's listless ear was never charmed with moan, 
But simple faith can solve eternity 
And make the fairest land of dreams its own ! 
And let the years lead to the shore unknown : 
Stay not their wings that seek the splendid day. 
So they but teach us ere they pass away 
The living truth that work and faith are one, 
And every noble thought a stepping-stone 
Whereon our feet are lifted from the clay. 



GRANITE HILLS, 



VIII. 



105 



I HEAR the clock strike, with a solemn dole, 

The hours from time forevermore exempted ; 

Sleep flies my pillow, and will not be tempted 

To lay the touch of slumber on my soul ! 

I feel a longing, and a loneliness. 

Over my spirit sinuously creep ; 

My heart aches, and my sleepless eyes would weep 

If tears availed. Now I would gladly bless 

The day of thy return, O dearest friend ! 

The day that brings, with thy soft hand's caress, 

Kisses exuberant in fond excess. 

And all thy wifely graces, charms which lend 

Enchantment to life's plain and common things, 

Making them luxury and fit for kings. 



I06 SONGS FROM THE 



IX. 



Lift to my face, dear love, your teary eyes 
With pearly drops so sweetly overrun ; 
Blue as the rift in April's changing skies 
Beneath the golden lashes of the sun ! 
Albeit their fringe of weeping is the shade 
Of summer's rose with violet inlaid ! 
I will repent me that a word of mine 
Should ever make thee weep, O fairest one \ 
I would do penance to a sainted shrine 
And kiss dry bones, for this which I have done ! 
Put gravel in my shoes, and walk alone, 
Far o'er the flinty hills with stifled groan ! 
Or, if thou wilt, on suppliant knee, I pray, 
" My darling, let me kiss thy tears away ! '' 



GRANITE HILLS. 



X. 



107 



What art thou, Death, O dread of all mankind, 
Whose noiseless feet, pursuing, never rest, 
Whose ruthless hand doth never cease to bind 
And make its own the truest and the best ? 
An end to all ? The sum of all our years ? 
A leap in darkness, an eternal sleep ? 
Or is life real ? And do we truly live 
For some high purpose which we cannot know 
Except by faith ? Doth God a season give 
Each soul in which to choose its way to go ? 
To vales of radiant bloom, where are no tears, 
Or to a dismal and unquiet deep ? 
And does the spirit, from these bonds of clay, 
Rise at thy touch, and go its chosen way ? 



I08 SONGS FROM THE 



XI. 



We met as strangers, and we spoke no word, 

Thy face as speechless marble glistening cold, 

Yet in our hearts were greetings as of old, 

Voiceful of tenderness although unheard ! 

For they who once have loved with passion pure, 

Can never all forget the joy love gives ; 

And sleeping in thy breast, it surely lives. 

Though starved and strangled, and will still endure ! 

As embers that have burned and smouldered low, 

Fanned by fresh winds, rekindle to a flame. 

So does the heart with love a moment glow 

At sight of some dear face. It is the same 

Old love that will not die ! Go where we will, 

It goeth with us, and will pain us still ! 



GRANITE HILLS. 



XII. 



109 



God careth not for piles of hammered stone, 
Nor circumstance of ceremonious prayer ; 
But in the fields and on the mountains lone 
Are temples high as heaven, builded fair, 
Where God forever dwells. His tender voice 
Is in the winds and waters that rejoice, 
And Nature is a preacher everywhere, 
Whose unstained lips a steadfast truth declare. 
O, give me then the mountain and the glen, 
Or stately wood by marge of pleasant stream, 
I would not herd with vain and selfish men 
Whose sanctimonious noise assails my dream, 
This lichened rock, beneath the old oak tree. 
Is nave and altar good enough for me. 



no SONGS FROM THE 



XIII. 



Tears fill the measure of our years, never 

Is sorrow absent from the hoary earth ; 

There's no abiding place for joy or mirth, 

Nor any rest from strife and vain endeavor ! 

Our friends are passing, one by one, the river, 

Dark, silent, deep, 'twixt seen and unseen lands. 

Whilst we can only lift our helpless hands 

Forlorn, beseeching, to the vast Forever ! 

It may be in the wide, eternal space 

There is a resting-place that human prayer 

Can reach and claim ; — else, in the deepening gloom 

Love, beauty, friendship, gold or lofty place 

Were vain indeed ! But pitfalls set to snare 

Regardless men ! Mere gilding of the tomb. 



GRANITE HILLS. 1 1 1 



XIV. 



ON THE TOOTHACHE. 

When Satan, from the groaning deeps of hell, 
The most infernal of infernal pain 
Let loose, louder than human tongue can tell 
The fiends rejoiced and loud rejoiced again ! 
For they were quieted, while man was cursed 
With Lucifer's last agony — and w^orst. 
It was the toothache — paragon of pain ; 
It tortures me, — in hell it punished Cain ! 
I curse and swear, — it is no use, forsooth, — 
It only lets the cold in on the tooth ; 
But when the nerve jumps just a little worse, 
I keep my mouth shut with a mental curse. 
Swearing I'll have for woe, if not for weal, 
A pint of brandy or an ounce of steel ! 



112 SONGS FROM THE 



XV. 



Ah, bitter cold and dreary is the night, 

Closing a day as chill and bitter cold ; 

The cattle shiver in the littered fold, 

And moan for sunny hill and grassy plain ! 

Without there is no cheering ray of light. 

But only storm of wind and frozen rain ! 

God pity those, shut out from fireside bliss, 

Homeless and hungry, on a night like this ! 

And teach us, by our cheerful fires within, 

To pity too, for all men are our kin — 

That kindly Charity gives more than air, 

Wishes and water, or an empty prayer. 

The prayers that aid the outcast and the poor 

Are golden prayers. In Heaven thy will endure. 



GRANITE HILLS. 



XVI. 



113 



When Darkness, like a demon, strode supreme 

O'er country waste and city solitude, 

I heard the cry of want, as in a dream. 

Come to my ear with low, sad interlude 

Of mourning, as some spirit dropped its load. 

Where Poverty and Famine stalk abroad. 

And Vice and Squalor have their mean abode, 

I heard the orphans crying unto God, 

Wide-mouthed, incessant, piteously and rude 

As young birds cry, whose mother hath been slain ! 

And from a thousand places came the cry, 

A thousand cities echoed on the strain — 

" Hunger and cold ! Lord, succor ; or we die, 

With wealth and plenty mocking us to pain ! " 



114 SONGS FROM THE 



XVII. 



And then I saw, in stately palaces 

Where mimic suns on lusty beauty shine, 

The glut of gold. And silver chalices, 

Brimming luxurious with beaded wine. 

Greeted to ruin half the sons of pride, 

Steeped to the lips in overbearing wealth ! 

Without the gates, the poor and homeless sighed, 

Scarce kept alive with pickings got by stealth. 

In vain the widow for her orphans cried — 

" Bread ! bread ! For Liberty their father died ! " 

And, while I looked, my soul within grew wiser, 

And loud I cried, with pity in my breath, 

" No more a tyrant, but an equalizer. 

Thou great Agrarian, stern, relentless Death ! " 



GRANITE HILLS. 



XVIII. 



115 



If thou dost look, from thy calm rest in Heaven, 

Back to the scenes of strife, or tears, or mirth ; 

If thou dost know, where sins are all forgiven. 

The sin and sorrow of the groaning earth, — 

How must thy heart ache, even where joy has birth, 

And yearn to thy beloved, passion born ! 

No, no, it cannot be ! For pain, nor sin. 

Nor sorrow at thy gates shall enter in 

To mar the splendor of eternal morn ! — 

Then, we are separate forevermore : 

Thou, 'midst the blooms of Paradise afar. 

With happiness full rounded like a star 

In sphered beauty perfect. I, on the shore 

Of Time's long reaches, utterly forlorn. 



1 1 6 SOJVGS FROM THE 



ON THE SHORE. 



Over the harbor bar today- 
Proud ships go out to sea ; 
Fair winds upon their canvas play, 
Prayers speed them on their shining way — 
Where may their haven be ? 

Where are the ships that sailed the main, 
With wind and waves to sport ? 

One trysted with the hurricane, 

The iceberg on the ocean plain, 
One reached a peaceful port ! 

Friends looked for their beloved again 

Until their eyes grew dim ; 
They scanned the dark blue verge in vain, 
Never the white sails of the slain 

Flecked the horizon's rim. 



GRANITE HILLS. 

Tell me of these, O ruthless sea, 

The tale I fain would hear ! 
O winds that wander far and free, 
How fared the ships that sailed with thee 

This many, many a year ? 

In vain the homeless winds I hail, 

In vain, the mighty deep ! 
Proud fleets may sink before the gale, 
Great seas may drown the fishers' sail, 

And all their secrets keep. 

And on a darker shore I stand 

Beside a wider sea ; 
My feet are on the shifting sand. 
My friends are passing from the land — 

Where may their haven be ? 

O Captain of our destinies ! 

O Warden of the soul ! 
O Ruler of the gloomy seas. 
Still as the dead eternities. 

Hath man no chart or goal ? 



117 



I 1 8 SOJVGS FROM THE 

Grim Silence guards the outer bar, 
The Hps of Death are sealed ; 

But breaking on the dark, afar 

I see the glimmer of a star 
By steadfast love revealed. 

Lead Thou me on, O Beacon Light 

Set for the shore unknown ; 
About me lie the glooms of night, 
The winds are loud, the waves affright,- 
O Star of Hope, lead on ! 

Then let the dark seas break and roll, 

The winds blow as they will : 
I need not fear the rock or shoal 
If I may hear, within my soul, 
The Master's " Peace, be still ! " 



GRANITE HILLS. 



THE FAIREST STAR. 

There is a star whose light sublime 
Illumes the darkening path of Time ; 
No cloud can dim its constant ray, 
No storm can drive its light away. 

Set for the face of Christ on high, 
It is the fairest in the sky ; 
The Star of Peace the wise men saw 
When love assumed the reign of law. 

It is the only gleam of hope 
'Mid glooms where countless millions grope 
Bright Star of Faith which lights the way 
Up to the crystal gates of day. 

Be it in life my guiding star, 
My beacon on the heights afar ; 
And blest indeed my soul will be 
If still in death it shines for me. 



119 



I 20 SONGS FROM THE GRANITE HILLS. 



A PLEA FOR LOVE. 

My living friends with love I keep, 

My dead by faith I hold ; 
Their words are like the touch of sleep, 
Their thoughts like threads of gold ; 
And these I cherish in my heart, 
And make them of my life a part. 

For what is sweet as constant love, 

Or pure as friendship's tear? 
In all my dreams of Heaven above 
My friends are standing near ; 

And tender words and loving eyes 
Complete the joys of Paradise. 

Then grant me. Heaven, when I am old 

Love still may be the same ; 
Fortune may keep her tinsel gold, 
And fame its sounding name — 
For these must perish utterly, 
But surely love will go with me. 



1 



